"The Matrix and Zelda come together!"

This game has made my Christmas wonderful. I normally get a lot of gifts (mostly games), and this time was no different. But out of anything I got, this one stands out the most. Pure genius has been put into it. Effort has obviously been made by developers. And for once in your life, you will find an action game with cool moves that isn't boring as hell (such as splinter cell). REJOICE!

Graphics: 10/10 I am truley amazed. While some games have amazing graphics, they lag and get choppy. However, that isn't the case here. EVERYTHING is smooth, with ZERO lockups. And EVERYTHING is INCREDIBLY detailed. Characters sometimes even look real. I'm truley amazed with graphics here, and nothing went close to being wrong, I assure you.

Controlls: 8/10 Also a nice aspect of this game, the controls are easy, and make sense. They take a bit to get used to, but the second you've learned them, you know them. All the special moves you can do in this game are very simple and easy to do, but more on that in a bit.

One problem with the controls is that I always tended to mix up left trigger and right trigger. It shouldn't seem so bad, but left trigger is the reverse time button, and requires a quantity of sand to use. So each time I flubbed, I lost a sandpackthingie (technical term). Not very fun at all.

Sound: 9/10 Very nice sound. The sound EFFECTS are realistic, and the voice acting is awesome. No other comments here.

Story: 9/10 It has a story too! Many action games are all action, with no thought going for the story. Well, here we have a very detailed plot, keeping you interested. It's narrated by the character as you go along, giving a nice feel, and its also quite origional. Should you die, you get a ''No, it didn't happen that way,'' and the option to continue or quit. It's all one big story, keeping you calm throughout the game :)

Gameplay: 11/10 No typo, this gets a bonus point it is so good. I'm not sure where to begin...

The gameplay involves some nice swordfights, including MANY combos. You yourself have amazing athletic ability, but enemies come in groups to compenstate. You use your sword, as stated, in many easy to do fashions. You can wall run, jump over your enemy and do a cool slash move, plus a jump- over-and-do-secret-not-listed-in-controls move, which I shall not give away :-P. Combat is awesome. You can of course block, and although it doesn't seem vital early on, it becomes very important when dealing with the harder enemies and bosses.

While on the topic of moves, you can do various things. I'm sure plenty of you have played splinter cell (which I once again proclaim boring as hell). Well, here you get huge amounts of moves as well, but its more fluid, and makes more sense. You use hangswinging on things like flags, to get from one to the other. You can pole climb. You can wall-cling. You can wall run. You can do so much cool, er, stuff, that the game continues to dish out fun.

Now, most action games have incredibly frustrating tasks, such as jumping a billion feet. It's always possible, but its always incredibly stupid and annoying. Well, no longer. Such puzzles here are realistic. Have a long gap? Do a matrixy wall run, possibly followed by a jump from the wall at the end if your destination requires it.

But here comes the best part. While it is possible to die, if it happens, you return to a nearby point. But usually, you DON'T die. Wanna know why? Once you get the nifty dagger of time (early in the game), you can rewind time for up to ten seconds as you die, or when you are dead. This allows simple mistakes to be undone without redoing the entire level. To make it fair, this ability takes up ''sand tanks,'' which are basically magic points like in Zelda. You don't get very many, but you wont die very often either. To quote another reviewer, the developers wanted you to enjoy this game, and not to totally destroy your controller over it.

Remember how I said the matrix and zelda came together to form this? It really DOES seem that way. Cool slow motion effects, and nifty wall abilities allow perfect gameplay matrix style, while still maintaining the zelda style swordfighting. The fights are more intense, however, as your enemies actually fight back.

If you haven't gotten the point by now, the gameplay is amazing. VERY amazing.

Replayability: 7/10 I'm not sure I will be playing this again, as it's more of a ''been there, done that'' deal. The same puzzles would get boring. But then, some of the action is nice, and you could blast through it since you already know what to do.

Overall: 10/10 This game will keep you busy for a while. It is fun, exciting, and actually INTERESTING. Not too hard, not too easy. Well done.